Hartford Releases RFP For Community Response Team
Published on May 20, 2021
HARTFORD, CONN (May 20, 2021) – Today the City of Hartford announced that it has released a Request-for-Proposals (RFP) to staff the city’s Community Response Team, which would respond to certain 911 calls for service related to behavioral health crises and other non-criminal calls for service with a social worker and a peer responder. Last year, Mayor Luke Bronin and the City Council set aside $5 million over four years to fund the design and implementation of this community response team. Since October 2020, the Mayor’s administration and an Advisory Board of local experts researched local and national best practices, and the City is launching this RFP based on that work.
The City is looking for an experienced and credentialed service provider to provide a coordinated team of social workers and peer responders to provide mental health and other crisis intervention services when activated by the City’s 911 dispatch team or through proactive outreach and engagement. These services include a clinical assessment of the identified client, a risk assessment and plan for intervention to match needs, referrals to the appropriate resources, and follow up case management.
“Every year we receive thousands of 911 calls from residents related to behavioral health crises or other situations involving individuals who do not appear to present any threat of violent crime, and we hope our new Community Response Team will allow us to respond with trained social workers as well as peer responders who can get residents the help they need,” said Mayor Luke Bronin. “Our Police Department has had a longstanding partnership with Capitol Region Mental Health, which will continue to respond to calls involving the most acute distress, but this effort will dramatically expand our ability to respond to situations where a police response may not be necessary. Our goal is that over time, we will be able to respond to more calls for service for minor, non-violent issues with community responders – and this is a big step in that that direction. I want to thank the City Council for their close partnership in funding and developing this program, our outstanding Advisory Board, which volunteered many hours and their expertise to guide us through this process. I also want to recognize our tremendous City team, including our Chief Operating Officer Thea Montañez, Patricia McIntosh our project manager, and our police, emergency services, health, and fire departments who will play crucial roles in implementation.”
“Last year the City Council was proud to work with the Mayor to set aside funding to develop and implement a community responder framework, and this groundbreaking RFP is the product of months of careful work by the administration and the Advisory Board,” said City Council President Maly D. Rosado. “The community responder model we’re developing here will allow us to meet the real needs in our community when it comes to mental health and also hopefully other non-violent calls for service. This has been a thorough process, and as it moves toward the implementation phase I am very grateful to all of the City departments involved, including our public safety and health departments, our Chief Operating Officer, and everyone involved.”
“Alongside our Advisory Board and Mayor Bronin’s administration, it’s been a privilege to be part of thoughtfully and deliberately laying the ground work for this RFP,” said City Councilman Nick Lebron, a member of the City’s Advisory Board that helped develop the RFP. “This will help serve our community in new ways — making sure we are addressing mental health crises with the care they deserve, and then hopefully moving further to broaden the community-based responder model. I’m proud of our city for listening to our community and being a leader in this effort, which is how real systemic reform works.”
How organizations can learn about the RFP and submit proposals: